The field of custom cosmetics is growing at a feverish clip. Soon, many cosmetics companies will have systems that produce customized cosmetics based on, for example, a customer's skin color. Some cosmetics retailers plan to operate custom cosmetics mixing and dispensing machines at production sites such as retail stores or on-line order fulfillment sites. In some cases, the entire process of recording skin color measurements for a customer, producing a custom cosmetics recipe based on the skin color measurements, and mixing and dispensing the customized cosmetic based on the custom cosmetics recipe, can occur in the store while the customer waits. In other cases, recording of the customer's skin color measurements can be done offsite, such as by the customer at home, with the recorded information transmitted in unprocessed form (e.g., raw data readings) or processed form (e.g., processed to characterize the captured color and/or converted into a custom cosmetics recipe) to a production site where the customized cosmetic is mixed and dispensed.